Bruised
by Kare Uta
Summary: Tala has been crushing over the girl he's been living with since he left the Abbey, and her having a seemingly abusive boyfriend doesnt help. He goes after the abuser, leaving Bryan and his big mouth to spill Tala's love secret to her. Oneshot. Tala/OC.


He walked around with little to no aim as to where he was going

_**Bruised**_

He walked around with little to no aim as to where he was going. It was freezing out and he was just trying to take his aching mind off the girl he was undoubtedly in love with at the present time. How weird was that though; he was in love with the daughter of the woman who brought him and Bryan in after the Abbey burnt down and Boris was convicted on too many counts. Well it could've been worse though.

It did sort of get worse. She was in a relationship. And if only he could say that he liked the guy and that he was good for her, but he couldn't even say that much about him. He couldn't think of a worse possible person for her. Kai insisted that Tala had nothing to worry about, and that he was probably thinking badly about the guy because he was jealous but Tala had a sickening feeling growing every single time he saw the girl he adored and the worst guy on the planet together. The way he touched her, the way he kissed her, the way he held her…it made him sick every time.

Then he saw her not too far away. He'd remember that lithe figure anywhere; from waking up in the morning and seeing her at breakfast, to afternoon where he watched her do homework, to the evening where they wished each other good night. She was walking so slowly though, usually she walked a lot more confidently than the way she took each step now. He walked to her a little bit faster; he wasn't surprised if she had tripped or something and hurt herself, she was known in the family for growing up with weak bones.

The closer he got to her the more he realized how beaten up she looked. Her hair was a mess, while she kept trying to run her hands through it to straighten it out. He could tell her lip was bleeding and that her eye was starting to turn a terrible black and purple color the closer he got to her. She hadn't noticed him obviously, he was coming up to the side of her when he put a hand on her shoulder. "Hatsu…what happened?"

The slightly surprised girl replied in her quiet tone, walking on, "Nothing, Tal."

"Who _did_ this to you?" Tala bit out furiously, griping her arm, letting go upon seeing that was bruised too. "Did _he_ do this?" he knew he'd struck a chord right there and grabbed her by the waist and pulled her up into his arms, from there being able to feel how fast her heart was beating against her ribcage. He looked around for a bench; it was a park after all so there should be one close by. He ignored her pleads to put her down, only doing so once he'd brought her to a bench. He knelt down on the ground, not bothered by the icy snow and trying to keep his anger under control so as not to scare her off. "What happened?"

"Nothing, Tal, don't worry about it."

"Stop saying that! You look _really_ hurt."

"Is mom at home?" Hatsu mumbled, swiping a strand of black hair out of her face.

"No, she said she had a lot of work to do so she was going to be at her office."

"I don't want her to know about this, Tala."

He couldn't believe the firmness and determination in her voice when she said that. "_What?_" he bit out, sounding as though he'd been burnt by the word itself, "Are you crazy? You've got to tell her about this! If you don't then I will."

"Don't you _dare_!"

Tala stood up, anger flaring in his eyes, "Like I'm afraid of you. I'm telling her because I'm not going to watch you get hurt like this again so you might as well save yourself the trouble and tell her yourself." He pulled his phone out of his back pocket, dialing a number while he spoke to her. She probably thought he was calling her mom but far from it. He called Bryan, told him exactly where they were and told him to come and get her and walk her home to take care of her.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to go and show the guy that beating up a girl isn't funny and he's going to learn a pretty good lesson." He began walking off in the direction, then turning back to her hurriedly, "Don't move from there; Bryan will be here soon." He ran off after those final words of warning.

True to his word Bryan showed up within ten minutes of the redhead leaving. Despite protests that the girl was alright, Bryan carried her all the way home and up the stairs to her bedroom; she was crying the whole way, so he didn't even trust her to walk in a straight line. The whole walk, until just after he brought the first aid kit to her, had been completely silent. They didn't say a word to each other. Hatsu had been frightened of Bryan for a long time when he'd first arrived at the house, and even though now she knew that he wasn't as tough as he looked, she still chose never to test his anger or any other emotion of that sort.

"Has he done this to you before?" Bryan asked after a few more minutes, pressing a piece of wet wool to her bleeding lip, not caring for her winces of pain.

"Not really."

"You really are stupid if you don't want to tell your mom about this. There's no woman on this Earth more understanding than her so you shouldn't keep this from her."

"What do you think Tala is going to do to him?" She whispered softly, interested and slightly concerned about the answer, trying to find a reason to shake the tears out of her eyes.

Bryan shrugged a little bit though, rubbing cream into her bruises and again, ignoring all her winces of pain and taking his sweet time to give her a reply. "Tala usually is a rational person. But after we left the Abbey we all got to thinking about things we never would've thought about in the past. That's where I learnt that Tala has a great distaste for people who hit women or kids. The fact that he's so attracted to you would probably only make him want to beat the guy up even more so really, it depends on if Tala's in a merciful mood."

Hatsu blanked at the last bit of his reply, raising a delicate eyebrow at Bryan, "Attracted to me?"

Bryan paused his actions, pursing his lips in thought, "Hmm, I guess as a good friend to him I shouldn't have said that, huh?" he didn't seem to be all that concerned really, actually quite happy that he'd said it. First off, it'd probably make things between the two go a little faster, in either direction. Secondly, it got her to stop her tears for a second. He shook his head of the thought and shrugged again, "Well in all fairness I'm tired of seeing him act like a love sick puppy around you so do us all a favor, either give him the attention he wants, or else just put him down easy and let him move on."

"He likes me?" She asked, her eyebrow rising higher, if that were possible.

"You think?" He sighed and put the first aid kit on the nightstand. "Can't a girl ever make things easy on a guy?"

"Says the guy who is probably too shy to go up to any girl."

"That's not the point." Bryan glared at his housemate. "The real point is, Tala is going to keep looking out for you no matter what happens. You and me, it's like a brother and sister relationship, but even I can tell the guy likes you more than that."

"I never noticed." She murmured softly.

"Yeah well maybe you got hit in the head one too many times." Bryan brushed his thumb over a small swelling on her forehead, "Anyway, stop stalling." He picked the cordless phone up from the nightstand and tossed it into her lap. "Call your mom." He went over to the door and locked it, tucking the key into his pocket and crossing his arms, "I have nowhere to go, no one to see, so I can stand here all day till you call her and tell her every last detail."

"But Bryaaaan," She whined, clearly being upset and over doing it to make him pity her.

"You can pout all day, you're still going to have to tell her and if I tell Tala that you didn't tell her by the time he gets home, he's going to go to her office and tell her himself so you might as well get it over with."

She pouted and whined for about another half hour, a part of her hoping he'd give in and not make her say anything. Bryan was as stubborn as they came though, and he was going to make sure that her mom knew what happened. Bryan was always like that with her, he was protective of her in the brotherly way, and he was also the one that was always on good terms with her mom so he wasn't about to go behind her back with important information.

Explaining was the most difficult part, and then every time she was plotting on changing any part of the story to make her mom stop fuming furiously Bryan's glare from across the room kept her from changing a single detail. He didn't know much of the truth himself, but he could tell when a person was lying just by that tiny barely viewable glint in their eyes. Then his glares scaring people into doing what he wanted only worked further to his advantage in this case.

That night Tala got home late, walking up the stairs to his dear friend's bedroom, knocking and stepping inside without waiting for her to reply. "How are you feeling?" he asked, watching the girl in the dim room.

"Not too bad."

Hatsu sat up in her large white bed, patting a space beside her for him to sit down beside her, "So what did your mom say about what happened? Was she angry?"

"Nah…not angry…livid is probably more of the right word, or maybe enraged, or something along those lines. But no, she wasn't 'angry'. "

As funny as Tala found her tone of reply, he didn't laugh at all and remained as serious as when he'd first entered the room, "Well who could blame her? You're her first born baby girl; I'll bet she's ready to kill the guy for it."

"Unless you beat her to it."

Tala sighed and went to sit by the window, "It was tempting, but no, I didn't kill the guy. He went home limping, and I could've sworn he was crying too but then that's what he gets for hurting a girl." He looked at her from across the room, crossing his arms and resting his head back. He couldn't quite understand what would possess any man on earth to hurt such a fragile and caring creature such as her, "Why did he do it?"

"He was mad at me."

"Well yes I see that but why?"

She exhaled heavily and went to sit with him, resting against his shoulder and holding onto his forearm where his muscles tensed the most, "Because he was getting pushy about everything, and I was breaking up with him because of it and he lost it."

"Well do me a favor, next time you decide to break up with a guy, have me be there so if they try to set a hand on you I can break their limbs."

"Hopefully I won't have to break up with more guys."

Tala raised his eyebrows at her, wrapping his arm tighter around her waist, "I'm pretty sure your mom was only joking when she said she was hoping you'd become a nun."

Hatsu laughed and moved closer to him, "I'm not even considering that."

"How many seventeen year olds _do_ consider it?"

"Will this seventeen year old," She prodded his cheek lightly with a soft smile on her face, "ever consider going out with me sometime?" the look on his face was overly serious, he was blank and then looked a little angry when he looked outside again. "I'm being serious. I'm not messing with you or anything." Her voice was barely a whisper when she pulled his face to look at her again. Probably in his mind he was cursing Bryan for ever saying a thing to her, maybe now to him it was as though she pitied him. She moved in a little closer to him though, her lips pressing against his lightly and not for very long before she pulled away, smiling up at his shocked eyes, "Is it so difficult to believe that someone you like actually likes you back?"

"Yes?" Tala tried with a blunt murmur.

Hatsu sighed and stood up, tugging at his hands to bring him to stand up, "You know Tala, there's probably nothing sadder than a girl having to beg a guy she really likes to go on a date with her even though the guy probably likes her back but just won't say anything 'cause he's shy."

Tala leaned in and gave her a brief hug, kissing her lightly on the cheek before stepping away from her and going to the door. He stood there, smirking slightly, "We'll go out when your mom decides to un-ground you, and that's more like house arrest with a mother like yours."

"Promise me."

"Promise what?"

"That we'll go out."

"I promised." Tala exhaled, disbelieving her stubbornness _and_ the blush creeping onto his own face, "Good night, Hatsu." He shut the door, knowing well enough that she had been grounded and that her mom disliked him in her bedroom so late at night. Bryan was out there in the hallway, leaning back against a wall and smirking. "I hope you enjoyed that. 'Cause I swear I'm going to kill you for it now."

Bryan laughed at that, pushing himself off the wall and already walking down the hall, "You'll probably thank me eventually."

"Yeah, right." Tala mumbled, chasing his teammate down the dark empty halls.

_**A/N: So I thought Tala needed some love. I don't think I had Tala fall in love with someone since Childhood Hell and that was ages ago! This was some other thing that was random but it hopefully isn't too bad. Just leave a review and tell me what you thought. **_


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